


but it's late in the day (and you're well on your way)

by nebulia



Series: you've changed some (water runs from the snow) [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Anal Sex, Azure Moon Route, Claude is a slightly unreliable narrator, Explicit Consent, First Kiss, First Time, Kissing, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Timestamp, life-changing library anal, playing fast and loose with book history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:02:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27356956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulia/pseuds/nebulia
Summary: [“Relax,” Claude says against his mouth. “It’s just me.”Dimitri scoffs. “Just you? Claude, you are--” but Claude isn’t going to find out what he is--though he might have to ask later, because now he’s curious--because he cuts Dimitri off by kissing him again, cupping his cheek and angling his face down just a little. The direction has Dimitri slumping into him a little, almost relaxing, and Claude puts his other hand on Dimitri’s other cheek, moving his mouth gently against Dimitri’s, and finally Dimitri moves back, lips brushing against Claude’s.Claude presses their foreheads together. “Was that so hard, your Princeliness?” he teases.]The night before the ritual at the Holy Tomb, Claude loses his virginity to the Crown Prince of Faerghus.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Series: you've changed some (water runs from the snow) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1998010
Comments: 9
Kudos: 133





	but it's late in the day (and you're well on your way)

**Author's Note:**

> first of two linked pwps taking place in the azure moon timeline. the second will be up in a couple days, hopefully! it's finished, just needing some editing. :D Thanks to seabee for the beta and also the cheerleading! you're my hero
> 
> inspired by the ao3 tagbot on twitter with this gem: [life-changing library anal](https://twitter.com/ao3taggenerator/status/1316815777874554880?s=21). 
> 
> Timestamp is White Clouds, ch. 11 (blue lions/azure moon route), 28 Pegasus Moon 1181, so everyone is eighteen and therefore an adult but also they're still fucking emotional doofus teenagers

It’s well past the midnight office when the library door creaks open and Dimitri slips in. 

At first, he glowed when he came to the library at night, warm and pink from the sauna. Claude figures that he _can’t_ sleep, unlike Claude himself, who doesn’t always choose to, and Dimitri’s first method of wearing himself out is the training grounds, beating a dummy to a pulp. But if that fails him, the library is where he ends up. 

They’ve been seeing each other since Harpstring Moon maybe once or twice a week. At first they worked on their own work but they naturally gravitated to each other. Dimitri was glowing and golden and scrubbed clean back then. Now he’s hollow, pale from winter, smudges under his eyes. Claude wonders how many nights he spends here, fighting lifeless enemies, wandering the monastery grounds. If he ever sleeps. He’s fraying at the edges.

But a faint smile touches his face when he sees Claude, and that’s a relief. “Claude,” he says. “I thought everyone would be asleep tonight.”

“Why should I sleep when the game is afoot?” Claude says, gesturing widely. They’ve learned since Tomas left that unless there are other people in the library there’s no one nearby to hear them if they’re loud. It’s probably a good thing. “There’s a mysterious ritual happening tomorrow with Teach and I’ve barely learned anything!” He leans in, hands on his hips. “Do _you_ know anything? Have they told you anything?”

Dimitri’s face darkens but he only shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says. “Just that Lady Rhea will be coming in with us.” 

“ _Just_ Lady Rhea?” Claude says, eyebrows up. 

“Is that so strange?” Dimitri says. “Haven’t you noticed how she moves?” 

With an unearthly grace, Claude had noticed. She reminded him of one of the ladies in court in Almyra, a beautiful dancer, who had a former career as one of his elder siblings’ assassins-- _oh._ Of course. 

“She just moves like she’s had a lot of military training,” Dimitri says, upon seeing Claude’s face. “She acts like it’s elegance, but there are enough warriors in court in Faerghus that the way she moves is familiar. The way she knows her body, how it can kill. If I’ve judged correctly, she can easily handle three or four well-trained soldiers at the same time. I think she could be teaching us in weaponry herself.”

“You’re right,” Claude says. “I couldn’t place it, but that’s what it is.” 

If Claude has learned anything from spending time with Dimitri, it’s that he’s not as oblivious as he first thought. He’s serious, but intelligent and observant, and a better strategist than his sternness implies. He’s not as good a tactician as Claude or the professor, but he sets up and analyzes upcoming battles as well as Claude himself or the professor or Edelgard can. He’ll play chess with Claude when they’re not working on homework, and can even put up a fight, but prefers a Faerghan strategy game with about twice the pieces as chess that Claude hasn’t yet gotten the hang of. ("In your defense," Sylvain told him once, "We've all been playing it since we were five.")

Mostly, though, they talk about governing. They often argue about governing. About spies, intelligence, economies, hierarchies, crestogeniture. Claude’s found in Dimitri someone who will freely discuss the complications and intricacies of leading a country without fear he will report him to the Church for blasphemy or to his grandfather for treason. Dimitri can be surprisingly blasphemous himself, for someone so pious. But they both have _questions_ , fundamentally, and gaps in their knowledge, and they find in each other a confidante, a kindred spirit. There are places their gaps align, but also places they can inform each other, and places they learn from each other. Claude often wishes Edelgard would also come to the library after hours, but if she does it's never when Claude's around. 

(“Edelgard knows more, I think,” Dimitri said once. “Her father has been more proactive in involving her in the process.”

“Your uncle hasn’t?”

Dimitri snorted, and that had been the end of the conversation.)

Today, though, Claude isn’t interested in government, or classwork, or even the mystery of Byleth Eisner. He’s interested in _rituals_. He’s got a stack of books from the Shadow Library in Abyss on one table and another stack from the library proper on another, and he’s been going through them side by side like he can read faster if he does two at once. “You should help me research!” Claude says as he explains what he's been up to Dimitri. “Why don’t you take the Abyss books? Anything about a ritual at the Holy Tomb would be more obvious in those. Here you have to look for the sanitized stuff, and it’s pretty subtle.” He wrinkles his nose.

Nine months ago Dimitri would have protested Claude’s editorializing, would have said there was a reason some books had been taken from the main cathedral library. But Dimitri’s seen the Church fuck it up same as Claude; he knows the Church will never see Abyss or its residents as valuable, same as Claude; he’s _never_ actually trusted Rhea, no matter how much he acts like a good Faerghan prince well aware that Faerghus’ freedom was acheived by the means of the Church. 

More than that, though, since Remire, Dimitri’s belief that propriety can block the means to one’s ends has been eroding. At first, Claude thought it could be a good thing; now he’s not so sure. If the trend continues, Dimitri will eventually sacrifice other things to his ends, and Claude doesn’t know who Dimitri will be, or what will be left of him, when it’s all over. 

So now Dimitri ignores Claude’s expression, instead sitting down at the table in front of the stack of Abyss books. He’s dressed down for Dimitri: his Academy trousers, but a simple high-necked black linen shirt instead of his usual uniform coat or the formal evening wear jacket, and leather gloves instead of gauntlets. He hung a soft dark cloak at the door next to Claude’s, the sort of thing most of the students wear over their uniforms on chilly days. 

“I did sort of plan to study,” he says. 

“Studying is boring compared to Church secrets,” Claude says. “Come on, live a little! Don’t you want to know what’s going to happen tomorrow?” 

Dimitri glares at the books, and then at Claude, and then sighs. “Yes,” he says, and grabs the top book from the stack. _The Customary Laws of the Region of Oghma._ “Why is this in Abyss?”

“Most of the ‘laws’ predate the Church, and include a bunch of holy days for a pantheon that incorporated the Goddess instead of worshipping her alone,” Claude says. “I skimmed the first few pages because I was curious, too,” he adds when he catches Dimitri’s look. 

“Duscur did that, too,” Dimtiri says. “She’s the Goddess of time and beginnings there, not the only Goddess.” He’s pensive about the subject, but not devastated or judgmental.

“Dedue told you?” Claude asks. He always wanted to talk to Dedue more often, but Dedue was not forthcoming, and Claude rarely saw him alone.

Dimitri nods, clearing his throat, not looking at Claude. “We speak of Duscur sometimes.” he says. “Though the library in Fhirdiad also has a handful of texts. Nothing like here, though. We only have a few hundred books.”

“There’s only a few books on Duscur here, though,” Claude says. “Only two even mention Sreng. There are three on Almyra.” They’re not super accurate, either, and Claude has snuck two better books from his own collection next to them, carefully copying Tomas’ hand in the catalog to add them officially. 

Dimitri smiles thinly. “Well, that’s already more than the library in Fhirdiad,” he says. “I’m sure the libraries in the Alliance have more?” 

The library in Riegan has a few, but more from his grandfather’s personal interest as he searched for his daughter than the Alliance’s political aspirations. “Not really,” Claude says. “I wish we studied the outside world more deeply. You can’t even find a good map beyond Fódlan here.” 

“It’s a hard sell,” Dimitri says carefully. “Fódlandy have been taught for so long that nothing useful comes from off the continent. The focus is on invasion, Almyra at the Locket and Dagda in the west, and not on the benefits we’ve received from limited trade and cultural exchange.” 

“What do you think?”

Dimitri bites his lip. “I don’t know,” he confesses. “There was a growing exchange with Duscur when I was young, and then--” He shrugs. “It didn’t end well. Not for the Duscur, at least.”

Claude’s heard Dimitri mention the Tragedy of Duscur: that he believes, with all the vehemence of the sole survivor of a tragedy no one else remembers correctly, that the Duscur didn’t kill his family. His vehemence has always made Claude want to believe him--that certainty isn’t the same as Dimitri returning to the monastery after Remire, half-mad with grief and rage, but something more measured and determined. It’s on Claude’s list of things to look into eventually, but others take priority. 

“Objectively, isolationism isn’t a wise way to rule, I don’t think,” Dimitri says. “I know you think it isn’t too. It’s restricting. But seeing what happened to the Duscur when diplomacy was attempted, sometimes I feel….” He shakes his head. “My feelings aren’t important when it comes to ruling, right? We should be looking at rituals if you want to solve this mystery before dawn, anyway.” 

“Right,” Claude says instead of poking Dimitri to elaborate further, and turns back to his own stack of books, adding another mystery to his own personal list of mysteries to solve. 

They both read quietly for a while, setting aside books as they go through them. Dimitri explains each one to Claude as he sets them aside: this one doesn’t mention the Goddess, this one the ritual for the Goddess involves killing her avatar and--”Yeah, Rhea’s kind of obsessed with Teach, isn’t she? No way she’d go for that”--this one happens at a specific location that isn’t the Holy Tomb, and so on. Claude, doing more specific work trying to dig out subtleties in censored and approved texts, doesn’t share so much with Dimitri, just the occasional piece worth looking into more deeply. 

The bells for the Matins hour ring. The bells are a lot fainter in the dorm, but Claude’s spent enough time in the library to hum along to them, knowing the distinct rhythms of each bell-ringer on their shift. He’d hoped to find more by now. 

Next to him, Dimitri opens another book, flipping pages quietly, and then he abruptly slams the book shut, ears going red before the rest of his face and neck floods with color.

“I don’t _think_ those are the right rituals,” he says. 

“Why, what are they?” Claude says, and Dimitri slides the limp vellum codex over, free hand over his face. Claude opens the book and turns a few pages until there’s an illustration: one monk tonguing another monk’s asshole. “Oh, wow! Is this a Cult of Cethleann text?” Dimitri nods, both hands covering his face. Claude flips a few more pages: a monk and a nun fucking, two nuns pressed together from face to hip, thighs slotted together, robes opened between them, a bishop’s fingers sliding into a monk’s ass while he comes across her décolletage and the square neck of her gown. 

“I didn’t know...Saint Cethleann was so…” Dimitri peers fixedly at the book cover, as though _On the Annual Rituals of the Saint_ can tell him more than its very enlightening contents. “I mean, she’s the patron saint of love but usually that’s interpreted as familial love, pious love.There’s a line about her in traditional Faerghan wedding vows but it’s all pretty pure, I thought.”

“There were a bunch of early Cethleannic cults,” Claude says absently as he looks through the book. He stops a surprisingly innocent image of two men kissing, hands tied together with a flower garland, next to a page about springtime rites. “I’d heard some of them were, more, ah, free with the definition. And it’s obviously true! This scribal hand is seven or eight hundred years old. How fascinating!” He grins at Dimitri. “Aw, is His Highness shy?”

“No,” Dimitri lies. His eyes have caught on the image Claude has stopped on, and haven’t moved since. The two men are fully clothed, unlike most of the other illuminations, and wearing white flower crowns like young women give out during Garland Moon. He’s blushing even more fiercely. “Regardless, I don’t believe this has to do with the ritual tomorrow. It seems more focused on the Goddess than any of the saints, I think.” 

“You _are_ shy!” Claude says delightedly. “This isn’t even one of the really dirty pictures! I’ve done more than this!” Claude’s kissed people. A few people, at least. Not everyone he’d like to kiss, certainly, like not Teach or Sylvain or Petra or, well, Dimitri himself, or Balthus or Mercedes or--Claude dreams big, what can he say--but a couple people. 

Dimitri snaps his gaze away from the picture. “ _Please_ ,” he says. “It’s not that, I just...I haven’t--” He swallows, throat working. “ _I_ haven’t done that before.” 

Claude glances down at the two men, kissing chastely. “Really? You’ve never even _kissed_ \--” There’s something creeping into Dimitri’s expression as his ears go redder and his face shuts down. “Well, that’s fine! It’s totally great! You don’t have to do that! But uh, you know, everyone I’ve kissed says I was pretty good at it.” All three of them, but still. He realizes, abruptly, that he’s halfway into a scheme without even realizing it. “If you wanted to, you know, practice? Or wanted that? I’m your guy.” 

Dimitri doesn’t look at him, but Claude watches with fascination as his ears and neck go redder and redder. “I’m sorry?” Dimitri says finally. 

Don’t back down, Claude von Riegan, Claude thinks to himself. Backing down is always the wrong move once you’ve stepped up. “We could! You know! Kiss. Get that first one out of the way. Unless you were saving it for someone special. Or you have to because Faerghus is weird and repressive.”

“Faerghus isn’t--” Dimitri cuts himself off, sighing. “Have you _met_ Sylvain?”

“Yeah, but Sylvain doesn’t really seem to care, and you’re the Crown Prince.” 

Dimitri sighs again. “No,” he says. “Faerghus isn’t weird and repressive about kissing. And I’m. I’m not saving it for someone special.” 

“So do you want to?” Claude says, trying not to sound eager. 

“I--are you tricking me?” 

“I would _never_!” Claude says, pressing a hand to his heart. Dimitri looks at him. “Well, I _might_ , but not right now. This is our time, you know? You’re my Matins library pal.” 

Dimitri smiles faintly. “Sometimes there are other people here.” 

“Would I call _Linhardt_ my Matins library pal? He’s asleep half the time, come on.” He stands up. “Get up.” 

The guarded expression on Dimitri’s face has faded but not completely. “Why?”

“Because I’m gonna kiss you and it’s less awkward when we can move around a little.” 

For some reason, this is the aggressive statement that gets Dimitri standing, pushing his chair aside, guarded expression fading. Claude’s not going to question it. After all, Dimitri’s probably going to marry Ingrid or Annette or some other baron’s pretty crested daughter and maybe just wants to be not totally clueless. Claude gets that. But maybe Dimitri really wants to kiss him, actually? No, he’s not going to think about that. Maybe ever. 

Dimitri stands with his back against the table, still blushing, and his gloved hands curl around the table’s edge. He looks at Claude nervously, licking his lips, and Claude is going to have to do this himself. 

Dimitri’s a little taller than him, but not much (just enough to loom irritatingly when he’s winning an argument), and so it’s easy to come up to him, tip his own head up a little to him, and press his mouth to Dimitri’s, chaste but lingering. He pulls away, and Dimitri hasn’t moved at all, totally still, and Claude licks his lips and kisses him again, opening his mouth a little this time.

Dimitri’s lips are dry, but his mouth is parted slightly and his eyelashes are long and dark blonde against his flushed cheeks. He’s very, very still as Claude leans in and kisses him, hands gripping the table. He tastes a little like iron, like maybe his chapped mouth bled earlier, but it’s not enough to be unpleasant. 

“Relax,” Claude says against his mouth. “It’s just me.”

Dimitri scoffs. “ _Just_ you? Claude, you are--” but Claude isn’t going to find out what he is--though he might have to ask later, because now he’s curious--because he cuts Dimitri off by kissing him again, cupping his cheek and angling his face down just a little. The direction has Dimitri slumping into him a little, almost relaxing, and Claude puts his other hand on Dimitri’s other cheek, moving his mouth gently against Dimitri’s, and _finally_ Dimitri moves back, lips brushing against Claude’s. 

Claude presses their foreheads together. “Was that so hard, your Princeliness?” he teases.

Dimitri bites his lip. “I don’t--want to hurt you.” 

“What are you going to do, hug me to death?”

Dimitri’s flush deepens, and not in a fun way; his head drops, shamefully. “I don’t--my crest is--I _could_ \--”

Fucking Blaiddyd crest. Claude had forgotten he’d seen Dimitri once crush a metal mug in one hand just because Sylvain snuck up on him, the light of his crest activation blindingly bright in the dining hall. “Are you that worried?” 

Dimitri shrugs. “It’s worse when I’m...emotional,” he says, not looking at Claude. 

“And you are now?”

“Are you fishing for compliments, Claude?” 

Claude shrugs, and Dimitri huffs, a half smile tucked in the corner of his mouth. “How’s this,” Claude says. “You keep your hands right there for now but you actually _relax_. Or better yet--” He pushes, and Dimitri plops back, sitting on the table in surprise. Like this, they’re of a height, and Claude steps up between Dimitri’s legs. His hands are on his knees, bunching the fabric of his trousers and wrinkling it helplessly. “Here,” Claude says. “That way you won’t be standing like a statue.You might be sitting like one _but_ if I do my job right you definitely won’t be.” He winks. 

“But I--”

“You can’t bite my lips off. There's no empirical evidence you can draw on to say your crest will cause you to bite off my lips.” 

“Technically,” Dimitri starts, and Claude doesn't want to know and will _not_ be asking later. He cups Dimitri’s face in his hands and kisses him again, more firmly. Dimitri’s mouth opens in surprise underneath his, and there’s the distinct sound of ripping fabric coming from the vicinity of Dimitri’s left knee. 

But Dimitri makes a sound into his mouth, a little sound of _want,_ and Claude surges in more to kiss him more firmly. 

Dimitri’s mouth opens _more,_ and he moves more against Claude, and he bites Claude’s lower lip gently, not hard enough to bleed, and Claude makes a little encouraging sound of his own. Dimitri _blooms_ with positive feedback--it’s obvious when someone compliments him on the training grounds or when Teach bestows one of their rare smiles on him--and he’s doing great so far, copying Claude’s movements, a little messily, but with growing enthusiasm and precision. His mouth was dry at first but slicks up as Claude kisses him, and when Claude makes another happy little moan of encouragement Dimitri presses in a little harder, more enthusiastic than before. When he pulls away to suck in a harsh breath, Claude grins at him. 

“Not so hard, huh?” he says. “And fun!” 

“Your eyes are really green,” Dimitri says. “And your eyelashes are so dark.” 

“You clearly aren't paying attention to the right things,” Claude grumbles, and pulls Dimitri back into him, opening his mouth right away to kiss him wetly, more tongue, a little bit of teeth. Dimitri’s picking it up fast, leaning forward into Claude, wrapping his hands around the edge of the table just outside each of his legs as a counterbalance, tongue in Claude’s mouth. His mouth isn’t dry anymore, but soft and slick, a little herbal from the chamomile he must have had recently. His body jerks into Claude’s, and Claude slides one hand back to tangle in his hair, pulling. Dimitri makes a little whine into Claude’s mouth and Claude pulls again, a little harder. 

Dimitri wrenches his mouth away, panting. “Claude,” he says. “Goddess, Claude, that’s--” His cheeks, already pink, flush more darkly and he leans in to kiss Claude himself, taking more initiative. Claude can feel himself glowing, because he’s the best teacher, except maybe Teach, but they don’t actually count. No one else could get the laced-up Dimitri Blaiddyd to unwind but here Claude is, getting thoroughly kissed in the library by the Crown Prince of Faerghus. 

“Good,” Claude says again. “It’s not so hard, is it? Not scary at all.” 

Dimitri’s mouth quirks. “It’s not quite a battle, no,” he says. 

“ _Well_ ,” Claude says. “It can be one,” and surges back in, kissing Dimitri with more ferocity than he has yet, and Dimitri outright whimpers into his mouth, leaning back more and more and more. Claude leans down and kisses Dimitri’s jaw, what’s visible of his throat. There are edges of thin swirls of burn scars above the high collar of his shirt, and Dimitri goes tense the closer Claude gets, and relaxes when he moves back to his jawline. Got it, Claude thinks, and sucks at a spot just below Dimitri’s ear, not enough to leave a mark but enough to make Dimitri gasp noisily. “Liked that?” Claude murmurs, and Dimitri nods. 

“It’s good, Claude, it’s...I like it--please don’t stop--” and the explicit, open consent has Claude moaning all on his own, desperate because Dimitri--Dimitri, prim as the noble he is, so rarely one hair out of place (rhetorically, since Dimitri’s hair is an attractive cornsilk mess of hand-swept cowlicks), is red-faced and bent halfway over a table during Matins in the _library_ , hungry for _Claude_. Asking Claude to keep kissing him, and Claude thinks _fuck it_ and pushes Dimitri onto the table and climbs on over him, straddling his hips to pin him down by the wrists and kiss him senseless, until Dimitri is red-faced and breathless and _hard_ beneath him, squirming with the urge to rock up against him. 

Claude’s hard too, which isn’t new for kissing, or for his life, but letting himself sink his hips down against Dimitri’s is, and they both groan together, and Claude swells into Dimitri, starting a rhythm as they grind together, kissing his mouth again, feeling Dimitri’s wrists flex into his hands and his hips move up into Claude’s.

It’s so quiet in this part of the monastery at night, the only sounds in the library the wet sound of their mouths, the low _creak_ of the table underneath them as they rock together, and Claude feels wild and lost in a bubble of his own creation, hurtling towards something he can’t quite figure out faster than maybe he wants to. Not just Dimitri, underneath him, gasping Claude’s name into his mouth, but everything: the ritual tomorrow, the half-packed trunk in his room, Edelgard’s absence--it’s all plunging towards him too quickly, like a horse out of control underneath his seat. He’s not quite distracted from Dimitri’s lips by it, but he’s spiralling into him, kissing him harder, hands squeezing his wrists when Dimitri’s arms twitch, and he shoves his hips down particularly fiercely and Dimitri cries out, jerking up into him, so much louder than they’ve been that they both freeze for a moment, meeting each other’s eyes as they lay there, unmoving. 

No one comes. The instructor’s quarters aren’t nearby; even Manuela, whose room is closest to the infirmary, is too far away to hear on the lower level, through stone walls and floors and heavy wooden doors. Tomas’ office is empty and silent, the library lit only by the lanterns that cast a warm glow on the book cradles and varnished tables. 

“You--you have to be up early in the morning,” Claude says, dropping his head down so low that their lips are almost touching. “For the ritual.” 

Dimitri shakes his head minutely. His eyelashes are so long they cast shadows on his cheeks. “I wasn’t going to sleep tonight no matter what,” he says. “Claude, I--” He pauses. 

“What?” Claude says, and presses his nose to Dimitri’s cheekbone. Dimitri shudders underneath him, body jerking. Claude wonders who touched him last at all. No one’s touched him like this, but no one ever touches Dimitri, not the way the Deer touch Claude. Maybe that doesn’t bother Dimitri like it would both Claude. Maybe it doesn’t matter, except that no one has touched Dimitri _like this_. No one but Claude. 

Dimitri’s head turns, to let Claude nose at his temple, his ear. “What is it,” Claude says again, into his ear. “Dimitri?”

“I don’t--I know the ritual is tomorrow,” Dimitri says. “I know it is, and I don’t know what will happen, but right now I don’t want to care. I don’t want to be thinking about that. I want--” He turns his head back to Claude, and reaches up, resting his gloved hand on the back of Claude’s hair. Claude’s braid is hanging down between them, brushing Dimitri’s cheek. Claude’s whole body is electric because Dimitri is _t_ ouchinghim, lightly, with so much caution it’s almost comical, but _touching_ him-- 

Dimitri’s shoulders are heaving. He looks wild underneath Claude in a way that would be worrying if Claude didn’t feel wild himself, and then it all falls away, the trunk and the ritual and the monastery. The library is _theirs_ , this is theirs, this--

“Can I kiss you,” Dimitri whispers, and Claude kisses _him_ , frantic with it, Dimitri’s leather-clad fingers catching in Claude’s hair as he strokes his head, so lightly Claude would barely feel it if he hadn’t been struck by the levin sword that is Dimitri’s touch. 

There’s nothing left in Claude to finesse the kiss, all of it fallen away with the rest of the world that’s dropped into the void around them. All that’s left here is this library, the humid space between them, Dimitri’s lips and tongue and teeth that are almost too much, but in a way Claude finds he likes. Would Dimitri bite him? Could he get Dimitri to sink his teeth into his lower lip, his throat? He wants Dimitri to pull his hair. Dimitri’s hand on him has opened up a whole new world of want in Claude. Claude wants to feel Dimitri, wants to feelhis cock, his bare skin--

“Let me touch you,” he pants against Dimitri’s mouth. “Please, Dimitri, let me-- _fuck--_ ”

Dimitri moves first, though, palming at _Claude’s_ hard cock through his loose trousers, not quite getting a grip on it, but managing to stroke his shaft, and the feeling is wild and strange, his hips kicking, the sensation of someone else touching him, of not knowing what will happen next. “Yes,” Dimitri says breathlessly, and Claude goes for his laces. “You can, if you want--we could--you know--” 

Claude pauses, stepping back. “You know?” he says. 

Dimitri’s eyes are huge and wild as he looks at Claude, cheeks bright red; he holds his gaze for a moment and then turns his head again. Claude follows his gaze to the book, still on the edge of the table, closed, looking deceptively innocent, limp vellum with a knot-and-loop clasp, innocuous title written neatly on it in an ancient hand. “We could--we could learn something together. You and me. If you don’t mind my crest--”

“If I don’t _mind--”_

“I just--I want to _feel--_ ” Dimitri reaches up again, touching Claude’s face. His head is still turned to the side and when Claude glances at him his eyes skitter away, but he’s not lying. His hand strokes down Claude’s jaw, still cautious, and he pushes up to kiss Claude instead of finishing his sentence. His mouth is hot and sloppy, eyelashes fluttering before Claude closes his eyes and sinks his own hand back into Dimitri’s hair, kissing him back just as messily, tasting himself on Dimitri’s tongue. He drops his hips again, rocks into Dimitri’s erection, imagines Dimitri’s cock in his mouth or in his ass or in his hand and his whole body lights up, like he wasn’t fully alive before he thought about sex with Dimitri Blaiddyd. 

“You really--?” Claude says, and Dimitri nods, still not looking at him. 

“I want it, Claude,” he says. He drops his hands back down to the table. “Do you want to?” 

“Of _course_ I want to,” Claude says. “Why wouldn’t I want to?” 

“I don’t know,” Dimitri says after a moment, and it sounds like a lie. Claude looks at him closely. It’s a little weird that he’s still wearing his gloves, but he’s never seen Dimitri without them, or gauntlets. It would be weirder if Dimitri wasn’t wearing them. He’s still hard, and he watches Claude with dilated eyes. He wants this. That wasn’t a lie. Claude almost presses but he keeps his own secrets, doesn’t he? Different secrets but...he should let Dimitri have some too. 

“Okay,” Claude says. “Okay. Let’s--let me get something slick. We might need that.”

It’s dry enough in the mountains that Claude carries around a salve for his lips and hands in his bag, and when he stands up Dimitri’s facing the empty table where they’d been kissing, trousers unlaced and unbuttoned but not pulled down, hips tipped back. “D-Dimitri?”

“I won’t hurt you,” Dimitri says firmly, like a promise, like he’s thought about it a _lot_. “There are a lot of ways I could, but like this, I won’t--I won’t be able to grab you, or bite, or--”

“ _Goddess_ , Dimitri, I’m not worried about that--”

“I am,” Dimitri says, so firmly Claude doesn’t fight back. 

“Okay,” Claude says, and then again, “Okay, that’s--that’s okay,” because Dimitri is still beautiful from the back--not just the swell of his backside and thick thighs from riding and how low his lance stance is, but the line of his spine through his shirt, the breadth of his shoulders, the vulnerable short hairs at the nape of his neck, the way his head drops and he shudders in pleasure when Claude runs a hand down his spine. 

“Oh,” he says, “ _Claude_.” 

“Good?” Claude says. “Do you like being touched, your Princeliness?” 

Dimitri’s head bobs, maybe a nod. Claude runs another hand down his back, more firmly. He can feel scars against the skin and says nothing. He took off his coat and his trousers, leaving him in his loose-collared yellow uniform shirt and smalls, but Dimitri isn’t undressed at all, not even his gloves, and Claude remembers how tense he got when his mouth got near the burn scars peeking above the collar of his shirt. 

No, Dimitri can’t hurt him like this, but he also doesn’t need to take off many clothes, if any. 

“May I?” Claude says, running his fingers along Dimitri’s waistband, and this time Dimitri says “Yes, please.” 

“So polite,” Claude teases, lightly enough not even Dimitri can find mean-spiritedness in it, and Dimitri huffs as Claude eases down his trousers around the tops of his thighs, revealing the swell of his ass, firm and muscular and generous compared to his narrow waist. Skims his hands along the curves of Dimitri’s hips, feels him stiffen a little. 

“Okay?” Claude says.

“I have a low stance, because I’m tall,” Dimitri says. “It’s harder to take out someone with a low center of gravity. The muscles there...develop.” 

“Are you explaining away your extremely glorious buttocks, Dimitri?”

“Ye-- _glorious?”_

Claude squeezes one cheek and Dimitri squeaks. “I’m a rider,” Claude says. “As Sylvain would put it, that makes me an ass man by nature.” He blushes saying it, though Sylvain wouldn’t. At least Dimitri can’t see it, and doesn’t know how much Claude is running on false bravado. 

This makes Dimitri _chuckle_ , for real, and Claude can feel himself beaming. Dimitri relaxes, dropping to his elbows on the table. “He _would_. He told Ingrid that exact thing once at dinner. She threw her glass of water on him.” 

Claude chuckles, and touches Dimitri’s ass more firmly. “I think you have an incredible ass,” he says, ears burning. He’s never touched anyone’s backside before, not like this. “Anyway, it’s not like I have a lot of other asses to judge by.” 

Dimitri turns his head a little, his golden hair falling to one side. “You don’t?”

“I said I _kissed_ people, not that I got their pants off,” Claude says. “Or they got mine off, either.” He got his hands down the pants of a pretty stable girl--and vice versa--who worked for Gloucester the year before he came to the Academy, while he was in Riegan, but they hadn’t gotten very far in the corner of the wyvern stables before someone came in, and then Gloucester left in a huff and a hurry before they could pick up where they left off. But that’s as close as he’s ever gotten to this. “But I’ve read about it! In books! And those broadsides you can find in the alleys near brothels. I know what I’m doing. In theory. But I also know you have the best backside I’ve ever seen.” 

“Since you’ve only seen the one,” Dimitri says, a smile flickering across his face. 

“Well, yes,” Claude says. “Though I think it’s likely superior.” 

Dimtri’s cheeks darken. “Thank you,” he says. “I think.” He shakes his head. “Don’t worry, Claude,” he says, with a bravado probably more obviously false than Claude’s is, “I don’t know what I’m doing either. So if you’re bad, I won’t know.” 

“Are you _teasing_ me?” Claude says archly. He wants to swat Dimitri, see that pale skin turn pink under his hand, but his nerves get the best of him and he just squeezes again instead. 

“Just stating a fact,” Dimitri says seriously.

“Hmm,” Claude says. “Anyway, I _said_ I knew what I was doing! I’ve read about it.” 

“The professor says practice is the best teacher,” Dimitri says.

“Hush,” Claude says, and reaches around to touch Dimitri’s cock. He’s still hard, somehow, and he shivers all over in Claude’s arms when Claude wraps his hand around it--barely--and gives him a long stroke. 

“Oh,” Dimitri says. 

“It’s different, right?” Claude says. “When it’s someone else.” Dimitri nods, head falling. His mouth is open, panting. A strand of saliva is threatening to drop from his red lips onto the table. He strokes him a couple times before he pulls away, spreading his cheeks with one hand and pressing his thumb, wet with Dimitri’s precome, against his hole. He rubs for a moment, feeling it twitch underneath him, hearing Dimitri gasp. 

Claude’s done this to himself, and read about it, and knows he needs to go slow. He just plays with Dimitri’s asshole at first, rubbing his thumb and then his fingers across it, pressing a little but never pushing in. When Dimitri’s hips are pushing back against his fingers, he reaches for the salve and comes back, still rubbing. The tight furl of his hole is loosening a little when he presses now, and there’s sweat darkening the short hair at the nape of Dimitri’s neck. Now he pushes in, one finger, and Dimitri makes a low, choking sound, hips jerking. It doesn’t seem like he finds it weird, or unusual-- _fuck_.

“Have you done this to yourself before?” Claude says. “Holy Goddess, Dimitri, that’s--” He can imagine it, Dimitri on his back or all fours, fingers sinking into himself while he makes the sounds he’s making for Claude.

“A--a couple times,” Dimitri says breathlessly. “Have _you_?”

“I like it a lot,” Claude confesses. 

“Oh,” Dimitri says, obviously not expecting that. “I--I like it,” he almost whispers. “I like it too.” 

Claude curls his finger and Dimitri _shouts_ , the sound echoing in the library. Claude’s glad they’re here, and not in their dorms, where Felix would undoubtedly murder one of them if he heard them and discovered them in this situation. Probably both of them. 

Dimitri pushes back onto Claude’s finger. “Again,” he says, and then adds, “ _Please_.” 

“Begging for me already?” Claude teases. 

“Being _polite_ ,” Dimitri nearly snarls back. “Please do that again, Claude.” Claude laughs, and kisses his jaw, and curls his finger again. Dimitri’s hands go out to grab the edge of the table, stretching him across it. There’s a flare of light as his crest activates, though nothing breaks. Claude adds a second finger and Dimitri’s sounds go high-pitched and hungry; he’s tight, but his body opens for Claude, hot and grasping around his fingers. No wonder people want to put their cocks inside other people all the time. He can’t even imagine what it must feel like. 

“It’s--this is different with someone else too,” Dimitri gasps. “It’s better.”

“I’ll have to try it next time,” Claude says. He shouldn’t make promises like that, not at the end of the school year when anything could happen, when he could be in Almyra in a month, but--damn it, he wants this again. He wants Dimitri again. Wants Dimitri to fuck him next time, to hear him fall apart when Claude sits on his cock. Or Dimitri fucks him like this. If he can get Dimitri over his stupid hangups about his body and his crest and his ass. “You’ll have to do it for me.” 

“I-- _goodness_ ,” Dimitri says, when Claude twists his two fingers, crooking them and dragging them against that spot that’s so intense it makes Claude see fireworks. Dimitri drops onto the table entirely, stretched across it, the linen of his shirt draping across the line of his back and spine, and he’s so fucking gorgeous. Claude wants to fuck him. 

“Another finger?” he says, and Dimitri just moans, eyes closed. His dark golden lashes are fanned out against his cheek, long and clumped together with sweat. Claude watches his face, transfixed for a moment, and Dimitri finally nods. Claude pulls out--Dimitri _whimpers_ , Goddess--and goes for more salve before he slides two, and then three fingers into Dimitri, his body opening for Claude like it was meant to. He’s barely fucked into him two or three times before Dimitri’s shoving back onto them, almost desperate with it. 

“I’ve never--” he says, voice cracking. “Not with three, Goddess, oh, _Claude--”_

Claude hasn’t, either, for that matter. “Is it good?” he says, and Dimitri nods. His bangs are wet with sweat. 

“It’s so good,” he says. “I--will you--with your--” He turns his head to press his forehead into the smooth lacquer of the table, and Claude isn’t going to make him say it, not when Dimitri is this desperate. Desperate for Claude’s cock. Claude slicks himself up, the salve warm in his hand and melting on his cock, and his hand skids against Dimitri when he tries to hold him open. He wipes it off on his smalls and tries again, to more success. Presses his thumb against Dimitri’s slick hole, once more, and it slips right in, no resistance. Dimitri moans into the table. 

Claude pulls his thumb out and presses his prick to Dimitri’s asshole, holding it in place while he pushes the head in. His cock isn’t bigger than his three fingers, he doesn’t think, and it goes in easier than they both expect, the head popping into Dimitri with ease. Dimitri almost _wails_ , the sound almost feral. The table creaks as he grips the edge of it and Claude grits his teeth and pushes the rest of the way in, willing himself not to come. 

“Oh,” Dimitri says, breathless. “Oh, _Goddess--”_

“It’s okay?” Claude says, and moves a little, because he can’t not. Dimitri is tight and slick and his forehead is pressed into the table right now but above the collar of his shirt his neck is bright red, the short hair at his nape dark with sweat. He’s holding himself still, but a fine tremble runs through his body, as though he’s too overwhelmed to truly remain unmoving. He turns his head to one side, and Claude can see the flushed apple-red of his cheek, his visible eye dilated to a ring of blue around a black pupil, the way he’s biting his lip as he nods. He’s _beautiful._

Claude leans down to nuzzle his jaw, hips jostling deeper, and Dimitri lets out a high, thready whine. There’s the sound of wood splintering.

“Careful,” Claude says, before he realizes Dimitri is still wearing his gloves, heavy enough that he won’t get a splinter. Does he ever get hot in those things? There’s sweat plastering his bangs to his face right now, darkening cornsilk to wheat, and he’s gasping. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

Dimitri snorts, but Claude moves again, and the snort trails off into a breathless huff of air. He’s so _tight_. Claude’s scared he’s going to come if he moves too much. Dimitri grips the table and pushes back a little. “I c-can take more,” he says. “You can move-- _oh_.”

Claude pulls out, just a little, and pushes back in, and Dimitri’s face goes slack, hips kicking. It’s _good_. Dimitri is hot around him, clenching down on his cock, and Claude thrusts again, making a sound he didn’t know he could make and barely recognizes as coming from himself. Thinks about the way his armor smells after a battle so he doesn’t come immediately and ruin it. He moves again, the rhythm uneven as Claude stutters to a stop every other thrust, but Dimitri doesn’t seem to mind, pushing back against him and making strange and wonderful sounds into the table, hands clenched around the edge of the table. There’s another sound of wood creaking, and a _crack_ as one of Dimitri’s hands rents a fracture in the tabletop--not enough to destroy the structural integrity of the table, but still. _Wow_. His crest didn’t even activate.

“Here,” Claude says, leaning over and peeling Dimitri’s hands away from the table’s edge, holding him down at the wrist. “Is this okay? Just so we don’t break the table.”

Dimitri’s visible eye dilates even more, nothing but a black pupil. “Yes--I-- _Claude_ ,” he says hoarsely. “It’s good, it’s _good_ , please don’t stop--” Claude gasps as Dimitri clenches down again, and then twists one of his hands, a little awkwardly, so he can link their fingers together, Claude’s pinky against Dimitri’s thumb. 

Claude moves faster, and Dimitri _moans_ , the sound sweet and precious and all Claude’s, and Claude says, “You-- _nn--_ you feel good too,” and Dimitri shudders, as much affected by the praise as Claude himself was. “Are you going to--” He slides the hand Dimitri hasn’t captured under Dimitri’s hips, feeling for his cock, which is dripping precome, big and wet in Claude’s hand. 

“ _Oh_ ,” Dimitri says, “Oh, fff--” he cuts himself off before he can curse, and Claude thrusts harder, pulling out almost all the way before shoving back in, Dimitri’s cock moving in his hand from the inertia. Dimitri’s eyes fly open. _“Fuck,_ Claude!” 

_Hell_ yes. “Look at you,” Claude says, smug. “Our buttoned-up, golden prince, swearing for me.” 

If he wasn’t already flushed past the collar of his shirt, Claude’s sure Dimitri would have turned redder. “You’re--it’s--don’t mock me...oh, Goddess--”

“Never,” Claude says, and pushes in and up on his toes to nuzzle at the nape of Dimitri’s neck, kissing the knob at the top of his spine through his shirt. He feels a little stretched thin, but he can’t get his hips to stop moving. Dimitri’s cock pulses in his grasp, and each thrust of their hips slides the shaft through Claude’s grip. 

“You can,” Dimitri gasps. “Tighter, I’m going to--please,” he adds, almost after the fact. Claude palms the head of Dimitri’s cock, gathering up precome, and holds him tighter, slick easing the way as they fuck him into Claude’s fist and back onto Claude’s cock. 

_Claude_ ’s going to come. Claude’s going to come any time, and he thrusts harder, sinking balls-deep inside Dimitri, watching Dimitri’s face open and needy and oh, Goddess, his eyes rolling back in his head, and--

He comes in Dimitri, holding them together, and it feels like he comes _forever,_ and halfway through Dimitri curses _again_ and his cock jumps in Claude’s hand, splattering it with spunk as he clenches down so hard on Claude he feels like he might come again or possibly die, one or the other. 

When he can breathe again, he pulls his hand from Dimitri’s cock and licks, tentatively, at the seed while Dimitri’s gasping for breath, more out of curiosity than anything else. Bitter, and salty, but not much different than his own, which is far from the worst thing Claude’s put in his mouth. He might not eat it unless he was desperate, but Flayn’s food is much worse, and he’s made concoctions himself that were truly nasty. 

He stands up, looking for something to wipe his hand on, and Dimitri slides off the table and onto the floor in a controlled fall, landing on his back. Lets out a gusty sigh, almost a laugh, and drapes his arm over his eyes. 

“Goddess,” he says. “I’m--I’ve never-- _Goddess_.” 

“Maybe this is one prayer you should be sending to Saint Cethleann for intercession,” Claude says, still looking for something to wipe with, and he thinks his only option is his golden capelet. He has an extra in his room, but...sending the yellow fabric to the laundry covered in spunk sounds like a terrible option. 

Dimitri pulls his hand away, blinking up at him, before he yanks up his trousers over his hips and fastens the button, though not the laces. “What’s wrong?”

Claude holds up his come-covered hand, and then they both look around--there’s more seed on the floor, and oh, it has to be leaking out of Dimitri now, even though he fastened his trousers, and Claude kind of wants to see that--does that make him a pervert? Does he care if it does?--and sweat and saliva splattered across the table, which does have one noticeable crack in it, and is splintered in a pattern along the edge that everyone in the monastery would recognize by now as being Dimitri grabbing wood with too much force. 

“They’re going to think we had a fight,” Dimitri says, sighing. 

“It’s not like there’s a librarian anymore,” Claude reasons. “Maybe no one will say anything. And we still need to clean up.” Semen would show up on both their dark cloaks, and Dimitri doesn’t have his jacket or capelet with him. Claude’s yellow capelet is the only thing they can use to wipe up that isn’t already necessary clothing. “Ugh,” he says, and picks up his capelet. 

Dimitri looks at Claude, holding his capelet with disgust with one hand, the other covered in Dimitri’s spunk, and laughs. Claude hasn’t heard him laugh since the party after the Blue Lions won the Battle for the Eagle and Lion, but the sound delights him, easing the unpleasantness of wiping up their mess with his capelet. He offers it to Dimitri with a gesture he hopes means _do you want it for the come in your ass_ , but Dimitri’s ears go bright red and he refuses. “You’re kind, though,” he says. 

The phrase spurs Claude’s memory. “Hey,” he says.

Dimitri looks up at him. 

“What am I?” Claude asks.

Dimitri blinks owlishly at him.

“Earlier. When I kissed you. I said it was just me and you were going to say I was something but I cut you off. But now I want to know.”

Dimitri blinks at him some more, and then flops back on the floor, laughing _again._

This time, Dimitri laughs more than Claude’s ever seen him, more than Claude could ever imagine Dimitri laughing. But there he is: putting one gloved hand over his face as laughter bubbles out of him like a waterfall. Claude watches him, realizes his mouth is open like a fish, and closes it, glad his blush tends to be less obvious than Dimitri’s. 

“You’re a storm, Claude von Riegan,” Dimitri says finally. “I was going to say you are a storm, and it’s never _just you_. It’s a whole storm of you.” 

Claude isn’t sure Dimitri totally means that as a compliment, but he’s pretty sure _he_ thinks it’s one. He grins at Dimitri, proudly, and Dimitri grins back. It’s been so long since Claude’s seen that open, wide smile that he wants to kiss it. Maybe Dimitri isn’t totally frayed yet. Maybe his house and Teach and Claude and the rest of the students are enough to keep him with them. 

The bells ring, indicating the change from Matins to Lauds, calling the end of the Orthros service.

“I’ve kept you up,” Claude says suddenly. “You’re supposed to go to the ritual with Teach.”

Dimitri’s smile thins. Claude almost feels like he maybe imagined the sound of Dimitri’s rare laugh. “It’s fine,” he says. “I wouldn’t have slept anyway, and I hardly have a headache at all.” Claude opens his mouth to tell him...something, to drink water, or eat, or get some herbs from Manuela, but Dimitri continues before he can, moving the subject along with the skill of someone better at diversion than Claude expected. “I should go,” Dimitri says. He finger-combs his hair, somehow managing to make it even messier. “We have to be up to leave for the Holy Tomb soon.” 

“I wonder how you get in,” Claude says. “I couldn’t.” 

“You tried to--” Dimitri shakes his head, and even chuckles a little. Claude sucks it in like a sponge, trying to commit the sound to memory because Dimitri’s suddenly gone cold again and he doesn’t know when he'll hear it next. “Of course you did.” He shrugs. “Maybe there’s a key.” 

“It’s a weird mechanism,” Claude says. “When you come back you should tell me all about how it works. I’ll be expecting you. Maybe we can sneak in again later!” 

Dimitri’s smile is less thin. “I will,” he says. “I’ll ask Lady Rhea if it’s not obvious.” 

But when Dimitri returns, grim and hungry for more blood, his Blue Lions trailing devastated and flayed behind him, there’s blood on his gauntlets and splattered across his face. He doesn’t tell Claude anything about mechanisms, or the ritual, or talk to Claude at all. The vase that has teetered nearer and nearer to the edge ever since the Blue Lions got back from Remire has toppled and shattered. 

Claude never does get into the Holy Tomb. 

**Author's Note:**

> Series and fic titles from Peach, Plum, Pear by Joanna Newsom. sequel/followup forthcoming!!!! 
> 
> other notes:  
> -I started playing this game because one of my favorite CVs, Ishikawa Kaito, voices Dimitri in the Japanese. [Here ](https://youtu.be/oOG3kyyn9og?t=43)is a very pure video where he laughs a lot and you can hear how precious his laugh is. Obviously I'm imagining Dimitri laughing like this. 
> 
> -Dimitri and Claude are using a loose conglomeration of catholic and orthodox medieval canonical hours and services to tell the time. Do not consider them verisimilitude. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated! I am available often at [@coaisack](http://twitter.com/coaisack) on twitter. if you want to support/follow me in other ways, i have a [carrd](https://nebulia.carrd.co/)!


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